Affection.

I didn’t expect anything from him. I didn’t expect him to put his number in my cellphone and my own in his. I didn’t expect him to call me last night. I didn’t expect him to, during that call, tell me he wanted to meet with me today.

Today at seven thirty-one on this chilly weekday morning.

I didn’t expect anything of him. I didn’t want to expect anything of him. Yes, my heart was beating in trepidation. My mind wondering and wondering and wondering what tone he was going to use today. What words he would say when he used that tone. What look he’d have in his eyes as he said those words. But I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to set upon him an image as I had before. I didn’t want to be misled again.

I had said yes. I had lied to him. And yet I wanted to see what would come out of this lie. To see who he was without having expectations. Without having an image of him formed within my mind beforehand.

I wanted to know Lee Taemin.

Perhaps this was my first mistake of many that would follow it.

Perhaps I knew this then but could have cared less as the clock in the distance struck seven thirty and soon after, as punctual as always, the doors to El Dorado hall burst open. And there he was. There he was, his hair disheveled, his bag slipping from his shoulders, and his drink in one hand as the other wrapped around the length of his red scarf and brought it up, swinging it around his neck loosely.

And instead of his eyes facing forward as they always had, instead of his feet promptly sprinting down the stairs and across that forbidden patch of grass, his head turned. His head turned and he was looking right at me. I grew overly conscious of myself in that moment, despite never having felt such a feeling all the days I watched him before. Most likely because this time he had acknowledged my presence as much as I had his.

Slowly, he made his way towards me, the svelte, powerful nature of his movements still not ceasing to amaze me. He sat by me within moments, shrugging his backpack from his shoulders and laying it on the ground beside him. I gulped down, spit having gathered in my mouth without me realizing it until then. The result was a small noise, a hum, producing itself from my throat.

He turned to me, his fringe shifting and stray strands flying this way and that. I wonder if he ever actually pays attention to his hair or if he just leaves it fluffed up like that all the time. Oddly, I can hear a voice in the back of my head saying, “Whatever it is that he does to it, I like it.”

He doesn’t say a word, as though he’s waiting for something. As I turn to him as well, locking eyes with his own, he finally speaks. He speaks in a manner I’m familiar with. A detached manner. Yet there’s something about hearing it that makes my chest untighten. There’s something about it that makes me relax.

“What is it you want to ask me?”

I want to ask where we go from here. I want to ask what it means to be his girlfriend. I want to ask why he asked me to take up that title without a single previous indication that he had any interest in me in the least. I want to ask all of these things. But the only thing I can think of as I look at him, at Lee Taemin, the boy who runs, the boy who no longer runs, the boy who walks towards me, towards me, his girlfriend, is what is in that mug he’s holding in between his slim fingers. And when I voice that, my own tone natural, much more natural that I feel at that very moment, he replied again with an unpredictable response.

But it wasn’t a spoken answer that he gave me. Without looking away from me, my own reflection all I could see in his eyes, he passed it to me. He passed his mug to me, placing it in the open hand I hadn’t consciously extended.

And I drank it. I drank it because I knew that’s what he meant by the gesture.

It wasn’t coffee.

It wasn’t tea.

It wasn’t hot cocoa either.

“Milk.” I said out loud as I drew my lips from the circular opening of the mug. There was something funny about it. Something satisfying about it. In knowing what I hadn’t know for so long. For having the answer to my question. An unpredictable answer. An answer that left a smile on my face as the heated liquid sank to the bottom of my stomach.

“What were you expecting?” He asked, not a hint of curiosity in his voice yet he remained silent all the while. He was waiting again. Patiently. As though it were common sense to do so. As though it were second nature to do so. And that little voice in the back of my head said, “I like that too.”

“Anything but milk.” I moved it towards him with the intent to give it back to him. He didn’t take it. He instead leaned over, his scarf almost falling from his shoulders again. My fingers twitched, the sudden urge to readjust it for him rising up within me. But I didn’t. I didn’t do what my body in that moment ached to do. I instead waited as he stood up suddenly, his backpack firmly situated on his back.

I held his drink up towards him again. He was leaving now to the place he had to be. A place I had no intention of keeping him from. And again, he did something I didn’t expect. He did take the mug of warmed milk. He didn’t simply leave just like that. Whilst bending down, one of his hands taking his beverage from me, his other hand wrapped around my outstretched one before I could lower it to my lap again.

He tugged me upwards effortlessly, making me rise from the stone bench. And we stood there for a moment, his hand surrounding mine. Engulfing mine. Suffocating mine.

I think I understood it then.

I was suffocating. That’s why I was unable to breathe in a deep breath of sense. Of logic. Of reality. My air was being taken from me. Stolen from me. And I let him do it. I let him take it. I let him steal it. I let him steal me. The me that would have turned back at this very moment. At all the moments prior. He stole it. He stole it and more as his fingers laced through my own, his fingernails grazing against the back of my hand, his warmth spreading through me to all the places the warm, milk beverage missed.

“Your class.”

He said. Though I think he said more than just those two words and I was merely too dazed to hear the rest. No, no I always heard him. I would just feign innocence as I did then, pretending I didn’t hear it just so that I could hear him say it again.

“Your class. Where is it? I’m going to walk you there.”

“Why?” That was my immediate question. What was I out to affirm? What was I out to gain from asking such a question? His declaration of love for me despite me myself not loving him in the least? A heartwarming statement only heard in the movies? Whatever it was I wanted, he didn’t give it to me.

He simply smiled. Yes, he smiled. A bright light danced across his eyes as his cheeks rose upwards. His pink tinted, slightly chapped lips curved upwards into a gesture that left me stunned. Stunned as we walked all the way to my ballet class, hand in hand, my eyes on him the entire time as he stared forward. And even though it wasn’t that green patch of grass we were treading upon, all of this felt forbidden.

Like the fruit not meant to be eaten.

A desire meant to never be fulfilled. Yet I had set out to fill it. And there was no more escaping him after that.



“He walked you to class.” Jongin stated matter-of-factly after Ballet class ended. I nodded as we headed down the hallway together, still floating in that dream like state being with Taemin this morning forced upon me. “Taemin hates being late but he walked you to class.” I turned to him, questioning him with my eyes. “Well, I mean, he doesn’t hate it. He just said it’s troublesome. That it’s something he’d rather avoid. So I guess he doesn’t hate it.” 

Jongin grunted gruffly as he ran a hand through his hair, “You can never tell with that guy. His thoughts are just,” he flitted his hands around his head in a fast paced motion. I nodded in agreement with the words he was conveying through the action, having learnt how to speak Jongin a long time ago. It’s a language I consider myself adept in by now. And Jongin at this particular point in time was saying exactly what I thought. Lee Taemin was a mystery. His mind worked in a manner so different from others that his actions were out of the norm. Attractively out of the norm. 

And if Jongin thought this way about him despite having known him, for what I assume, so much longer than I have, then knowing Taemin was going to be something much harder to do than I originally thought. 

"I'm his girlfriend now." I announced to him, something that caught him off guard. So much so he stopped in his tracks and pulled me to a stop along with him. A few students in our class had to skid to a stop to avoid bumping into us. His hand gripped tightly onto my forearm, his eyebrows furrowed downwards.

"You're his what?" He asked, though he didn't give me a chance to answer him as he continued, "Really? Don't you think you're rushing into this a bit too much? I mean, I saw him holding your hand and all but I didn't think you'd actually. Listen, Taemin is–" He paused momentarily and a list of adjectives flew through my head at that point in time. Though the one that stuck, the one that made itself known the most, was the one that his own voice repeated back to me then, "Taemin's dangerous." 

Dangerous. 

I knew what he meant by that. 

He meant Taemin’s ability to affect me was dangerous. He meant that getting involved with him so easily was dangerous. He was a danger to me. My thoughts. My personality. My common sense. It meant my future was going to be laced with danger from then on. 

"Yet you still wanted me to meet him." 

He stared at me, his eyes pleading with me as his hand that still gripped tightly around my forearm loosened just a bit. His intentions in introducing us were obvious to me right at that moment. At that moment in which his dark brown eyes that were a perfect match to his unruly hair seemed to say every single word. Every single word that could be used when apologizing to someone. 

"You thought it would help me get over him. That I would stop liking him once I met him. Right?" And this time, I was the one who didn't wait for him to answer me, "You don't have to worry, Jongin. I don't like him." 

A look of shock mixed with frustration crossed his face, "If you don't then why? Why are you his girlfriend now?"

My answer to his question came to me much easier than I thought it would, "Because I wanted to like him." 



The next morning was the same. At seven thirty-one, the doors to El Dorado hall opened and he came walking out, readjusting his clothes as he neared me. "Good morning." I whispered as he stood above me, soaking in the sight of him as I had done countless times now. 

"What makes it so good? It's barely begun yet." He held out his hand to me without a word about what I was supposed to do in response to the gesture. I obliged to his silent suggestion and reached up, resting my hand in his. There were a few pen marks on his fingertips, making me wonder what he had done this morning that, to him, could not be called good until it actually happened yet. But it also made me wonder why I didn't mind if the marks transferred to my own palm as his fingers twisted, molding in between my own. Or rather molding my fingers to fit in between his own. It made me wonder why I so easily took his hand and also something else.

"You hold my hand like it’s nothing." His original contempt for me had transformed into this. Into this relationship we now have shared for one full day. A relationship that I realized then was defined differently in his own mind. 

"That's what couples do. They hold hands. They want to touch each other." He answered as though it were some kind of scientific fact proven after many tests and retests. Yet I didn't like it. It left a bad aftertaste in my mouth. It left a bad feeling in the palm of my hand which was pressed against his own. 

"They don't do it just because they want to touch each other." 

It was animalistic, his deduction. And as a result my tone was one of scorn that I didn't regret in the least. He didn't seem affected by it though. He merely blinked, his long, black eyelashes fluttering downwards twice before his eyes seemed to focus on me again. I felt weak under his gaze. I felt weak as his hand was still interlocked with mine. I felt weak to his question to me then.

"Then why do they do it?" 

Why do they do it? Why do couples hold each other's hands? Because they like each other. Because they love each other. Right? Then, why did Lee Taemin and I hold hands? We're the antonym of what a couple should be. We don’t love each other. We don't even like each other. So then, why do we hold hands? Why is it that that question seemed to be the one he was asking? 

"I don't know." 

What was the reason we would hold hands? I honestly didn't know. And just like that, I felt his hand slip away, taking refuge instead in his coat pocket. He walked me to class after that, silence engulfing the two of us the entire time. And after that, he didn’t hold my hand again until much later. Until we endured so much more. Until he stole from me so much more.

A/N: I like this chapter so much that I can't even describe why. Did you like it too?